“Inspiration is good, imagination is better, action is best!”

It is Friday, and my promise is to only share good, uplifting news on Friday. This is one of the weeks when there is a bounty of good news.

Naturally, my thoughts go first to ‪Greece‬. Beautiful, inspirational, revolutionary victory of ‪Syriza‬. Greece – the place to go to *now,* to breath in the air of hope and powerful organizing. As my friend Nicola Cosmi said, “inspiration is good, imagination is better, action is best!” Here’s to action!

Then, I think of the retaliatory targeting of an occupying Israeli military convoy in the occupied Sheba’a Farms by Hezbollah on the 28th of January. A well-organized, well-executed, and empowering move. بيان رقم واحد (which I discussed here, on a debate on Press TV)

Then, there is this fighting-back spirit by the consistent and amazing Steven Salaita. Yesterday, he filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Chicago against University of Illinois officials and several university donors over the decision by administrators last August to revoke his appointment.

The lawsuit alleges a wide range of illegal conduct before and after university officials named in the suit “suddenly and summarily dismissed” Salaita from “a tenured faculty position” for “voicing his views.”

Salaita is seeking reinstatement and unspecified monetary damages and other relief for violations of his constitutional rights, breach of contract, wrongful interference with contractual relations and “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

“My primary motivation in bringing this suit is to join my colleagues in the American Indian Studies program and begin teaching,” Salaita said in a media conference call with his lawyers shortly after the suit was filed.

“I do not want [the university’s] illegal actions to become the norm in US universities,” Salaita added.